


When You Fall

by todisturbtheuniverse



Series: Tongues Will Wag [15]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 06:25:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2763008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke decides that this is how she’ll die—spiders were going to kill her eventually, anyway—but the Nightmare has more planned for her than a quick death. Spoilers for Inquisition, specifically ”Here Lies the Abyss.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This might be too dark to become my personal canon for my Hawke, but the idea intrigued me regardless.

Hawke tugs at an old blue handkerchief knotted around her bicep.

The gold stitching has begun to fray, the fabric faded with time. Here, in the ghastly light of the Fade, it’s a mangled scrap of what it once was. It comes free of her armor, wrinkled and threadbare, and she holds it out to Alistair. Her hand doesn’t tremble.

"Take care of my sister." Her voice doesn’t quiver, either. It’s strangely blank, as though she is already gone. "And tell Isabela I’m sorry."

The Nightmare drifts closer. She swallows, fingers digging tighter into her daggers. Alistair stares at her as though he’s never seen her before. He doesn’t run for the rift; she can see the agony in his face.

"She needs you," Hawke insists. "Go.  _Please_.” She reaches out, turning her blade away, and gives him a hard shove to the shoulder. His feet stumble, unwilling, but at last he catches himself and runs.

Varric is already at the rift. She prays that he won’t turn back, but he’s too paranoid for his own good; he glances over his shoulder and sees that she isn’t coming.

"Hawke!" he shouts. She can hardly hear him above the noise of the Nightmare, drawing still closer. "What are you doing?!"

The Inquisitor grabs his arm before he can start back. She drags him toward the rift, and he fights her for every step. Hawke wishes she had time to thank her for that, but it seems she is, at last, out of time. She turns her back on all of them—Alistair sprinting up the rise, the Inquisitor’s furrowed brow, Varric’s anguished face—and looks up at the Nightmare.

"It’s always spiders," she mutters. She hears the sizzle of the rift closing behind her, Varric’s wild cursing swallowed up. There’s no one left to hear her last feeble joke, and she is, for once, glad.

* * *

Varric has never wanted to write a letter less.

It was decided—after a lot of swearing and shouting and then a lot of sitting in horrified, wounded silence—that Alistair would take word to Bethany, and Varric would tell Isabela. They have a dead drop in Antiva City; one of Nightingale’s agents can leave it there for her. He sits at his table with his pen dripping ink until the fire gutters down to embers, and he can’t find the words to ease the sting.

His sinuses burn. When he closes his eyes, he sees her face: steadfast, resolute, the smirk long gone from her mouth, the apology in her blue eyes, like she wished she could say she was sorry.  _You should be_ , he thinks.

There are no right words for this.

* * *

_Isabela,_

_Hawke is gone. I don’t know how much you know about what we were planning to do, but when we confronted the Wardens at Adamant, we fell into the Fade. There was a demon called the Nightmare. Hawke stayed behind to cover our escape._

_I’m sorry. I didn’t see her die, but as much as I want to, I don’t believe she survived._

_Varric_

For a few terrible heartbeats, Isabela reads those words over and over again. _Hawke is gone. Hawke is gone. Hawke is gone_.

She sweeps the letter from the table. She throws her bottle of whiskey at the tavern wall. She stalks out, ignoring the stares, and drags every member of her crew out of the comforts they’ve only just begun to enjoy. She sets sail for Kirkwall.

* * *

Aveline greets her at the docks.

She knows. Isabela can see in the set of her mouth that she knows. She turns her crew loose and then she and Aveline stand there, not quite looking at one another.

"I’m sorry," Aveline says at last. Her eyes are red, but her voice is the same as ever: frank, open.

"She isn’t dead," Isabela replies. "Look, if we know anything at all about demons, it’s that they like to play with their food before they eat it." Aveline’s nose wrinkles—in disgust or disagreement, Isabela isn’t sure. "Hawke is alive, and we’re going to find her."

Isabela expects Aveline to say  _No_ , and then maybe clap her in irons for good measure, but instead her brow furrows, her shoulders roll, and she says, “All right.”

"All right?" Isabela repeats.

Aveline nods. “All right.”

Isabela lets out a long breath. “All right. We need Merrill.”

Aveline’s eyes narrow. “You’re not thinking—”

"Is the estate still empty?" Isabela interrupts.

"Empty," Aveline confirms, as though already resigned.

"Right." Isabela turns toward Lowtown. "Meet you there."

* * *

Merrill, when she opens her door, is a mess.

Her eyes are already bloodshot, but when she sees Isabela, they well with fresh tears. Her hair is in disarray, her skin blotchy beneath her vallaslin. “Oh, lethallan,” she says. Her voice chokes around the word. “I’m so…so…”

She sniffs, wiping her face with her sleeve, and on impulse, Isabela hugs her. There’s a warning prickle in her eyes, but she grits her teeth and wills it away. If she cries, she’ll never make it back to Hawke. If she cries, it’s over.

"Kitten," she says into Merrill’s hair, "I need a favor."

Merrill’s arms tighten around her. “Anything.”

* * *

Isabela pauses at the door to greet the old estate.

The face of it is overgrown with ivy again. Even the old red crest hasn’t been spared. For a moment, Isabela imagines Bodahn’s voice, a mabari’s joyful bark, the crackle of a fire that never stops burning. But the mabari is silent at her heels, his ears drooping, and when she opens the door, it is dark inside, musty with age, and the only voice is Aveline’s—and Varric’s.

"You shouldn’t be here."

"You’re going to do something ridiculous. Of  _course_  I should be here.”

They’re standing in the parlor, a few feet apart. It’s been some time since Isabela saw Varric, and he looks terrible: the gold that once glittered in his ears gone dull, hair unwashed, new scars. She should be angry, she thinks, but his eyes meet hers and skitter away and she knows that no anger can fix this.

"It’s fine," she directs at Aveline. "I’d rather have Bianca watching my back than not."

Varric looks at the supplies Merrill carries. He hasn’t met her gaze, even though she’s staring at him. “This isn’t going to work,” he says. “It’s not like before, Rivaini. We were  _physically_ in the Fade, and I don’t know how to get back there like that. Short of jumping straight into a rift—”

"You won’t need to." Merrill kneels down, scattering her supplies on the floor. "If Hawke  _is_  still alive, I’m sure the Nightmare has taken her prisoner.”

"Not exactly comforting, Kitten," Isabela mutters.

"Well, no, but it helps us. You see, she’ll sort of be dreaming, even though her body is there. That means that the ritual will draw her here, physically. As long as you break whatever hold the Nightmare has on her—"

"You didn’t see it." Varric’s voice is bleak. "This isn’t your standard demon, Daisy. We barely scratched it."

Merrill sits back on her heels, her mouth an unyielding line. “You don’t need to kill it. Just distract it long enough for Hawke to get to a rift, and then you’ll all wake up here. She should come out at the rift on Sundermount—I think that’s the closest one.” She bites her lip. “She’ll be alone, but—she’ll know where she is. She’ll see. And we’ll set off straightaway to get her.”

Aveline and Varric exchange a look. They don’t believe Merrill, Isabela thinks, but they’re going to play along. That’s all she needs.

"I can’t go with you," Merrill continues. "If I’m conducting the ritual, I have to stay here."

"I’ll go with them," says a voice from the door.

Isabela turns. Bethany’s silver-and-blue armor is tarnished, dirty, her boots dusty and scuffed. If she’s wept, she’s hidden it well. There’s nothing but a terrible determination in her eyes, and for a moment, she looks so like Hawke. From her pack, she pulls an old, blue handkerchief.

* * *

"Don’t call out for her."

The Fade dampens Bethany’s voice. There is a windmill in the distance, turning lazily. If not for the fog, the little village ahead of them would seem peaceful—idyllic.

It once was, Bethany thinks, her fingers tight on her staff. The Fade is clammy on her skin. She can’t hear the Nightmare, not like she can hear darkspawn, but she knows it can’t be far.

"This is Lothering," she tells the others. Varric’s eyes watch the windmill spin.

"Come on," Isabela says, drawing her daggers, and leads the way into the village.

There is no one to greet them. All the doors and windows are shut tight. She can’t hear her own footsteps through the muffled damp. Her heart is heavy in her chest.  _It could be me_ , she thinks, looking at the little houses.  _It could be me, making this place. It doesn’t mean Marian’s here. It doesn’t mean she’s alive._

"I’ll tell," a voice says, as though speaking directly in Bethany’s ear. "I saw her. I’m going to tell."

They round the corner into an alley, and there she is: a teenager, all awkward limbs, standing toe-to-toe with a boy a full head taller than her, her hands balled into fists.

"You won’t tell  _anyone_ ,” she says.

"Hawke," Isabela whispers.

She strikes, her fist connecting with his jaw, and he staggers back. Before he can recover, she’s at him again, pushing him into the stone wall. The back of his head  _thuds_ , wet and wrong, and then he’s crumpled on the ground and Hawke stands over him, breathing hard.

"It was an accident," she says.

Bethany brushes past Isabela. “This isn’t how it happened,” she tells Marian’s back. “You said you’d tell his parents about the sword, remember? The one he found in that dirty old stash and kept showing off. And he was so afraid of you that he didn’t say a word.”

Bethany doesn’t blink, but suddenly, Marian is herself again, red paint on her nose and threads of silver in her dark hair, turning slowly toward her.

"I would have," she says, her blue eyes bleak. "I would have killed him. It wouldn’t have been an accident. Why are you here? Are you a dream? Yes," she adds, as though to herself. "It must be. The Nightmare trying to trick me. More to fear if I think they’re really here." Her eyes glance over Bethany’s shoulder to Isabela, quick, and then away.

"I’m not a dream." Isabela’s voice cracks. "We came to save you."

Marian steps back, shaking her head. “Go back. I’ll feel better, even if you aren’t real. Better to think you’re safe.”

There’s no motion to herald her leaving; she’s there, and then she’s not.

Bethany lets out a long, slow breath, sagging against her staff. “She’s here,” she whispers. “Maker, she’s still alive.”

"It would have been a waste to kill her." The voice is a deep, dark caress. It reaches into Bethany’s heart and burns. "So many fears crawling around inside her. Better to pluck them out, one at a time."

Varric shuffles his crossbow, glancing toward the mouth of the alley. Aveline hefts her shield.

"But these old fears were growing stale. Thank you for coming," the demon says, diplomatic. "She is  _terrified_.”

* * *

She is twenty-five, and her brother’s blue eyes are empty.

She is twenty-two, and her father’s ashes fall through her fingers.

She is old, Maker, she feels so old, and her mother is dead in her arms.

* * *

It’s snowing.

Varric loathes snow.  _You must hate Skyhold_ , the Inquisitor always says, a kind smile on her lips, and he bites his tongue on  _You have no idea._  He huddles by the fire day in and day out, but there’s no feeling in his toes.

He knows this place, he thinks, but it’s as if someone assembled it wrong. The towers have crumbled; there’s stone where there shouldn’t be. He trips over debris, looks down, and curses, staggering back.

"Skyhold," he says when Aveline glances at him, a question in the lift of her eyebrows. He doesn’t name the body he tripped over, doesn’t look at it, doesn’t wonder if it was horns he saw or maybe blond hair. "It’s usually nicer than this."

There’s movement ahead: Hawke, darting to the foot of the stairs, the flight that leads up to the Keep. “Varric!” she calls, her voice desperate.

He already knows. He’s expected it would end this way, anyway: their fortress buried in rubble and snow, the Breach unchecked, their defiance smothered. It’s one thing to  _think_ it, and another to see it, and another to watch Hawke clawing her way up the broken stairs, screaming for him like she’s dying.

He follows her. The others tread after him, shocked into silence. She’s in the throne room, now, digging through the rubble where she knows he used to sit, her breath ragged.

"You won’t find me," he tells her, hoping he’s right.

She ignores him and goes on digging, tossing aside bits of rubble.

"I’m not under all that. I  _hate_ the damn Stone, remember?”

Hawke shakes her head. “Maybe he isn’t here,” she whispers. “Maybe he was gone—”

Her hands brush the broken stock of a crossbow. There’s a horrible sound in her throat, a sob choked out against her will.

He can’t reach her shoulder; he touches her hand instead. She doesn’t move away. “You’ve got to stop this,” he tells her.

"This is why I stayed." Her voice trembles. Her fingers clench around the stock. "This is why I have to stay. You’re not the only one who wants to save this stupid world, you know. And the idiots living in it."

He squeezes her hand. “You’re not helping us by moping around in here.”

She chuckles, the sound watery. “I wasn’t helping much out there, either.”

There, beneath the rubble, he sees a glint of gold. Her hand slips from his, and she’s gone again, leaving them alone in the broken stronghold.

* * *

Her knee aches, and her brother is cut down at Ostagar.

Her ribs are broken, and her sister dies before they can find the Wardens.

Every breath she takes is sharp, and Isabela sails away without saying goodbye.

* * *

For a moment, Aveline is relieved.

The familiar hodgepodge of Kirkwall—of  _home_ , stinking, rotting, cursed place that it is—rises around her. The sun shines on streets caked with dirt. The flies buzz.

There are too many flies, even for Kirkwall.

Hawke is kneeling outside The Hanged Man. The man himself has fallen down, blocking the doorway.

"Shit," Varric mutters.

"Don’t do this to me," Hawke says. Armor clanks as she shakes the person lying in the street. " _Nothing_  can kill you. Not this—not this stupid arrow, that’s for sure. Wake up.” Another shake. “Wake up!”

Aveline has had enough. She strides forward, sheathing her sword, and grabs Hawke by the shoulder. The woman yelps in surprise and pain, but Aveline isn’t done; she hauls Hawke to her feet. She doesn’t look at the corpse on the ground.

"You’re being ridiculous," she tells Hawke. "Come to your senses, right this _instant_.”

Hawke stares at her, eyes huge in her face.

"No one is dead yet," Aveline says. "So let’s leave, and keep it that way."

"I can’t go." Hawke’s voice is a raw nerve, a plea. " _It_ will…follow me. Get into the world. Make all this happen. I can keep it busy. I’ve been keeping it busy.”

"You’re being stupid." Bethany’s voice is thin but firm. "It’s stuck here. The rift at Adamant was the only one big enough for it to get through."

"You don’t  _know_ that. And—and you’re not here, anyway. This is probably a trick. A trick to get me to lead it out, because it’s tired of me. Maker, I’m tired of me, too, but no. It’s not leaving.  _I’m_ not leaving.”

"I forgot how bloody stubborn you are," Aveline grumbles. "We’re  _going_ if I have to drag you out of here myself—”

But Hawke slips through her fingers, gone like vapor.

"How is she  _doing_ that?” Isabela demands.

"I don’t think she is," Bethany sighs. "The Nightmare must be moving her—"

The Fade groans around them, and what remains of Kirkwall crumbles.

* * *

Her mabari whines, head in her lap, and she is too tired to cry when his eyes close.

* * *

Bethany knows this place, and she doesn’t.

She has never been to Weisshaupt, but this is what pictures in books and her blurry imaginings have shown her: a lonely road, a blighted land, a fortress rising up out of nothing. She tries not to think too hard of Alistair traveling this path alone, bearing news back to the First, but it’s hard not to wish she was there to soothe the guilty wrinkle between his brows.

There are different figures on the road ahead: Marian, the red in her armor faded, the buckles dusty with travel, and Bethany, just ahead of her.

Marian calls her name, and the other Bethany turns.

Once, Bethany blamed Marian for the Blight in her veins; now, with that old wound long healed, she knows that Marian has saved her from something much worse.

"It’s just me." It’s the calmest Bethany has heard her sister’s voice since they entered the Fade. It’s the soothing tone she’s always used for nightmares and scraped knees. "Bethany, it’s all right. I’m here."

The other woman pulls the staff from her back. “Turn back,” she orders. There’s a haze of red lyrium in her eyes. It glints between the links of her chainmail. It drips from her fingertips.

"It’s all right," Marian repeats, stepping still nearer. "Fight him, Bethy, please."

For a moment, the other woman looks as if she might shake it off, but then her fingers grip her staff with renewed purpose and she swings; a blast of ice catches Marian in the chest. Bethany flinches. Her sister staggers back.

"You’ll have to try harder than that." She’s still smiling, damn her.  _Fight back_ , Bethany wills her.  _Fight back, **please**._

The other woman makes a fist. Marian rises a few feet off the ground and then falls, her knees buckling beneath her on impact.

"That’s nothing," she says, even though Bethany can  _hear_ the cartilage in her knee groaning.

The eyes glow, the staff swings—

Bethany sweeps the attack away with a wave of a barrier, a little force magic to stop the fire, and before she can look too closely at herself, she throws a fireball. The demon shrieks—it doesn’t sound remotely like her, now—and burns. There is no ash to show its passing.

She drops to Marian’s side. She sends a pulse of healing magic through the weary knee, a gust of warmth for the ice in her chest. The cobwebs seem to lift from her eyes; she watches, wary, but she doesn’t protest, and she doesn’t deny.

"You have to stop this," Bethany tells her. "Come home."

"I want to." Marian rubs her hand over her face, paying no mind to her gauntlets; somehow, they don’t make ribbons of her flesh. "Maker, I want to. I don’t know how."

"We have to find a rift. Merrill says you’ll come out on Sundermount. We were at the estate to draw you closer to Kirkwall—we’ll go back and find you as soon as you’re through."

"This isn’t like where I was before." Marian squints, as though trying to make out the fortress in the distance. "This is like Feynriel’s dream. I was…somewhere else, at Adamant. Weird place, the Fade. How can you find a rift in a dream?"

"It’s your dream. Maybe you should make one."

She makes a face. “I’ll try. This is really more your area.”

"I can’t make rifts," Bethany scoffs. "I’m not  _Corypheus._ ”

"That bastard," Marian sighs, and then she flinches. "Oh, not again—"

* * *

She is dying, and Isabela is going to kill her.

* * *

There’s something about sunset at the docks in Kirkwall.

Isabela has only docked there a few times since the Gallows burned, but she and Hawke—caution be damned—opened a bottle of wine and watched the sun go down, for old time’s sake, every time they put into port.

But Hawke is alone, now, unopened bottle at her side. She gazes out at the horizon, her toes brushing the water, and there is no ship in the slip beside her.

"Where am I, then?" Isabela asks, nudging her in the side.

"You didn’t come back, I suppose." Hawke rubs the back of her neck. "This is embarrassing."

She isn’t in armor, just a threadbare tunic and trousers that have seen better days. The breeze ruffles her hair; there’s no paint on her cheeks. It’s how Isabela loves her best.

"I didn’t know you were  _capable_ of being embarrassed.” Isabela sits down beside her, hip to hip. Hawke rests her cheek on her shoulder.

"It’s a stupid fear," she mutters. "You always come back."

"Maybe you should try for the bare minimum, then," Isabela suggests, "and do the same."

It happens slowly this time, not quickly. There are cracks in the world around them, and bright green light shining through. The horizon splits apart to show a new one, the water slides away to show dirt, and there, just ahead, is the rift.

Hawke’s head lifts. “I should,” she agrees, her eyes full of green light.

The world shudders. “You will not escape me,” the Nightmare says, but Isabela doesn’t see it, and if Hawke goes  _now_ —

Hawke laughs, incredulous, and pulls Isabela to her feet. “Joke’s on you, you big, stupid spider,” she says.

Isabela pushes her toward the rift. “Go!”

Hawke, still smiling, pulls her close again just long enough to kiss her. “Thanks,” she whispers, and then she’s running, an all-out sprint toward a tear in the world—

Isabela blinks, and she’s on the musty floor of the estate. Merrill is leaning over her, breathing like she’s the one who’s been running.

"Did you find her?" she demands, her voice quivering. "I felt the Nightmare getting closer, I left you there as long as I could—"

"We found her," Isabela interrupts. Her face aches from grinning. "We found her, we found a rift, she got out."

Merrill drops her face to her hands, letting out a long, shaky breath. “Thank Mythal,” she says.

* * *

They’re jogging down the Wounded Coast when they see Hawke.

Worse for the wear, certainly—half-limping, half-jogging, her armor torn, one dagger missing—but  _alive_. Isabela jogs a little faster, and Hawke staggers along as best she can, and they catch each other in a fierce hug.

"You idiot," Isabela says.

"It turns out that there are a lot of demons around rifts," Hawke replies, "so I decided not to wait around." She’s grinning when she pulls back, soot streaked across her face, her paint smeared. "Are you going to punch me? I’d sort of like that, I think. I probably deserve it."

Isabela doesn’t get a chance, because then Hawke is kissing her, and they saw one another a  _month_ ago, but it suddenly feels like it’s been far too long, and she’s perfectly content to ignore Aveline’s throat-clearing, but Hawke pulls back too soon, still smiling.

"I need a drink," she announces. "There aren’t any drinks in the Fade, did you know? I kind of  _hate_ it there. And Wicked Grace.  _Definitely_ Wicked Grace. It’s been so long since we were all standing on the same demon-infested shores—”

Bethany shoulders in and hugs Hawke, hard enough to shut her up, and then Merrill arrives on the other side, and then every last one of them is sitting in the sand, leaning on one another, the mabari laying all over Hawke and occasionally licking her face.

"That was really awful," Hawke relents. "And  _embarrassing_. Maker. Bloody terrible. Let’s never do that again.”

"Done," Varric agrees. "I am  _never_ bringing you into an Inquisition operation again. I think all the self-sacrificing nobility in the air goes right to your head.”

"I, too, deserve an opportunity to save the world," Hawke protests.

"That was your last opportunity," Bethany groans. "Go back to being a pirate."

"Yes, lethallan, I think it’s safer," Merrill adds.

"I did all right, didn’t I?"

There’s a hurried chorus of assent, and Hawke shakes her head, smiling fondly. “Liars,” she says, looping an arm around Isabela’s waist, “every last one of you.”

"It was noble," Aveline says, completely straight-faced, "but you’re terrible at noble."

In the morning, Isabela thinks, she and Hawke will set sail for Antiva. The world’s always ending there, anyway. They’ll hardly notice a difference.


End file.
